


just two spiders hiding in the darkness

by bluemermaid



Category: Secret Avengers
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:57:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3776308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemermaid/pseuds/bluemermaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanova has never fallen in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just two spiders hiding in the darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



Natasha Romanova has never fallen in love. 

Yeah, she had that thing with Hawkeye a while back, but that didn't _really_ count as an actual _thing._ They were really more like close companions than anything else, and Nat doesn't have any hard feelings about the way it ended. She has no attachments; that's just one of the things she's learned in a long life of secrets. 

Love is for children, a weakness that only leads to destruction and death, a game played at by those not in the know. Natasha has seen far too many dark things to allow that sort of attachment in her own life. She's been trained by more than just S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or Avenger operatives. She's been in some pretty shady organizations. Not exactly of her own volition, but still. She's learned things.

Anyway, she doesn't fall in love, and she hasn't fallen in love now. Natasha doesn't know what love is, really. She just knows that it's bad. Like, a really bad thing.

Sometimes it doesn't seem so bad. Sometimes she looks over at Jessica in the middle of a mission, with her hair flying about and her powers knocking the shit out of people, and Natasha feels a rush of something like pleasure. What could it harm, really, to congratulate Jessica on another successful mission, to take Jessica out for ice cream afterwards to celebrate, to lick the remnants of chocolate off Jessica's lips? What harm could that possibly do?

Natasha had never imagined licking chocolate off of Hawkeye's lips. That right there should have told her that she was in trouble.

****

Sometimes she dreams of Russia, black streaks of smoke across the sky and pain splintering like a thousand tiny needles along her body. They made her strong but it broke her in the process, tore her in two so that they could sew her back together. But sometimes things slip through the cracks.

Sometimes Natasha opens her eyes and she doesn't know where she is, she doesn't know who's touching her and it scares her, it makes her lash out and snap, fists and legs and gunfire, and then Jessica rolls off the edge of the bed and everything goes lopsided. Natasha can't figure out what to say.

Jessica just looks at her for a minute. "Sorry," she says finally, and backs away, slipping off into the night.

Then Natasha feels like shit but this is what love is, isn't it? It ruins things. Not that she's in love with Jessica. No. She barely knows the girl.

*****

Jessica is still new to the team and so Hill sends her on missions with Natasha close by her side, to watch over her and train her, to keep her updated on all the little things Maria has neither the time nor the inclination to share. And so they are together, touching and talking and learning from one another for hours at a time. Jessica is eager, eager to learn and eager to fight, eager to do anything new and adventurous. Natasha smirks at her enthusiasm. It's endearing.

They slip in and out of enemy compounds and blast their way through leagues of battalions and robots and monsters. Natasha fires entire clips into the hordes while Jessica weaves and dodges and shoots her radioactive webbing, or whatever those spider powers gave her. Nat isn't big on super powers. She's always gotten by on her own natural wits and she's more than okay with that.

Not that she doesn't appreciate some supernatural assistance out in the field. She really, really does.

And when said supernatural assistance saves her life and then offers to patch up Natasha's wounds in the privacy of their own secret spa? Well, that goes beyond even normal appreciation. That's _caramel gelato_ levels of appreciation. 

"We really should do this more often," Jessica says, her fingertips rubbing circles into Natasha's shoulder blades. Nat only moans in response. "Sometimes I can't decide what I like best about this job, the missions or the aftermath." There's a sweetness in her smile, something Natasha cannot seem to find inside herself. She's never wanted to be soft before; she still doesn't. But she likes it in Jessica.

Natasha's smile is never sweet; it quirks to one side with the promise of danger, mischief and a desire for darkness. She wears that smile now. "We could make the aftermath a mission, too. Get the best of both worlds."

"Only if that mission is _Figure out what goes on in Natasha Romanova's head_ ," Jessica replies, and Nat rolls over before she can stop herself, throwing Jessica off slightly before she reasserts herself, and then the two of them are face to face and there are no dark shadows to come between them here. They're in a brightly-lit room and there aren't any men with guns bursting in on them – yet – and they're staring into each other's eyes and there's no deadline, there's no pressure, there's no inner dialogue in Natasha's head telling her _Natasha choose your next move, love is for children, the darkness is your home, get away from the girl._ There's not much of anything except for Jessica smiling at her.

"You know, I only do this for you," Jessica tells her, grinning. "Even if you did punch me in the throat that one time."

"Yeah, probably better not to wake me up in the middle of the night," Natasha replies. "I have issues."

"I'm not all sunshine, either," Jessica says, and then she leans in real close, so that her hair falls over her shoulder, brushing lightly against Natasha's skin. Yeah, she never felt anything close to this with Hawkeye. He was cute, of course, but he wasn't Jessica Drew. "Guess we're just two spiders in the darkness."

And wasn't that just the icing on the cake. Nat leaps up and kisses her, mouths smashing together and fingers winding in each other's hair, all heat and desperation and want. It's an explosion, it's a bomb going off right in the middle of the spa, and for once it isn't an actual bomb in their lives. What shock.

No, Natasha Romanova has never, ever fallen in love. With a man. She'll just pretend that makes a difference in the whole "love is for children" thing.


End file.
